Jobs, of course, had an answer to all this: a
"thermo-nuclear" legal war that would keep clones off the
market. Yet nearly two years after Apple first filed a
patent-infringement lawsuit against Samsung, and six months
after it won a huge legal victory over its South Korean rival,
Apple's chances of blocking the sale of Samsung products are
growing dimmer by the day.

Indeed, a series of recent court rulings suggests that the
smartphone patent wars are now grinding toward a stalemate, with
Apple unable to show that its sales have been seriously damaged
when rivals, notably Samsung, imitated its products.

That, in turn, may usher in a new phase in the complex
relationship between the two dominant companies in the growing
mobile computing business.

Tim Cook, Jobs' successor as Apple chief executive, was
opposed to suing Samsung in the first place, according to people
with knowledge of the matter, largely because of that company's
critical role as a supplier of components for the iPhone and the
iPad. Apple bought some $8 billion worth of parts from Samsung
last year, analysts estimate.

Samsung, meanwhile, has benefited immensely from the market
insight it gained from the Apple relationship, and from
producing smartphones and tablets that closely resemble Apple's.
Continued...